Investigating a visceral measure of perceived physical attractiveness.

Perceptions of physical attractiveness are typically assessed using numeric rating scales. As with other visceral experiences, perceptions of physical attractiveness may benefit from multimodal measurement. Recently, we developed and validated a squeeze (dynamometer) method to evaluate two "visceral" states (hunger and cigarette craving).

The impact of alcohol on affiliative verbal behavior: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Language is a fundamental aspect of human social behavior that is linked to many rewarding social experiences, such as social bonding. Potential effects of alcohol on affiliative language may therefore be an essential feature of alcohol reward and may elucidate pathways through which alcohol is linked to social facilitation. Examinations of alcohol's impact on language content, however, are sparse.

Where to Look? Alcohol, Affect, and Gaze Behavior During a Virtual Social Interaction.

COVID-19 forced social interactions to move online. Yet researchers have little understanding of the mental health consequences of this shift. Given pandemic-related surges in emotional disorders and problematic drinking, it becomes imperative to understand the cognitive and affective processes involved in virtual interactions and the impact of alcohol in virtual social spaces.

Beer Goggles or Liquid Courage? Alcohol, Attractiveness Perceptions, and Partner Selection Among Men.

Objective: Perception of physical attractiveness (PPA) is a fundamental aspect of human relationships and may help explain alcohol's rewarding and harmful effects. Yet PPA is rarely studied in relation to alcohol, and existing approaches often rely on simple attractiveness ratings. The present study added an element of realism to the attractiveness assessment by asking participants to select four images of people they were led to believe might be paired with them in a subsequent study.

A social contextual review of the effects of alcohol on emotion.

Drinking and drinking problems are complex phenomena. Understanding the etiology of alcohol use disorder requires consideration of biological, psychological, and social processes. It is our view that the last of these dimensions is just beginning to receive adequate scrutiny.

How laboratory studies of cigarette craving can inform the experimental alcohol craving literature.

Interest in alcohol and other drug craving has flourished over the past two decades, and evidence has accumulated showing that craving can be meaningfully linked to both drug use and relapse. Considerable human experimental alcohol craving research since 2000 has focused on craving as a clinical phenomenon. Self-reported craving to drink typically has served as a catch-all for the craving construct in these studies, whereas few studies have considered craving as a process (or hypothetical construct) that interacts with other phenomena to affect use.

The effect of alcohol on mood among males drinking with a platonic friend.

Background: Despite the social nature of most drinking experiences, prior work has largely failed to incorporate social context into the study of alcohol's effects on emotion. The present study provides an initial test of the effect of alcohol on mood among platonic friends drinking together in a non-stress setting. We hypothesized that subjects would report more positive postdrink mood after consuming alcohol than after consuming a nonalcoholic control beverage.

Alcohol narrows physical distance between strangers.

Pandemic management is likely to represent a global reality for years to come, but the roadmap for how to approach pandemic restrictions is as yet unclear. Of the restrictions enacted during COVID-19, among the more controversial surround alcohol. Like many infectious diseases, the principal mode of transmission for COVID-19 is direct respiration of droplets emitted during close social contact, and health officials warn that alcohol consumption may lead to decreased adherence to physical distancing guidelines.

Toward Multimodal Modeling of Emotional Expressiveness.

Emotional expressiveness captures the extent to which a person tends to outwardly display their emotions through behavior. Due to the close relationship between emotional expressiveness and behavioral health, as well as the crucial role that it plays in social interaction, the ability to automatically predict emotional expressiveness stands to spur advances in science, medicine, and industry. In this paper, we explore three related research questions.

A Dynamic Analysis of the Effect of Alcohol Consumption on Humor Enjoyment in a Social Context.

Many social interactions involve alcohol consumption, and drinking alcohol can lead to powerful increases in enjoyment in these social contexts. Yet we know almost nothing of the means by which alcohol enhances social experience. Importantly, since individuals in social contexts not only respond to environmental conditions, but can also actively generate these conditions, understanding alcohol's social enhancement within wholly unstructured social interaction presents challenges.

Experiencing cigarette craving with a friend: A shared reality analysis.

Cigarette craving predicts relapse to smoking, which remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Understanding why individuals smoke has important clinical implications and is a research priority. Nonlaboratory studies reveal that social factors, such as the presence of other people, are associated with self-reported craving, yet laboratory smoking research has largely ignored these factors by testing participants in isolation.

Self-Expression While Drinking Alcohol: Alcohol Influences Personality Expression During First Impressions.

People are motivated to be perceived both positively and accurately and, therefore, approach social settings and adopt means that allow them to reach these goals. We investigated whether alcohol consumption helps or hinders the positivity and accuracy of social impressions using a thin-slicing paradigm to better understand the effects of alcohol in social settings and the influence of alcohol on self-expression. These possibilities were tested in a sample of 720 participants randomly assigned to consume an alcohol, placebo, or control beverage while engaged in conversation in three-person groups.

Pleasant olfactory cues can reduce cigarette craving.

Cigarette craving is a cardinal feature of smoking, which is the leading preventable cause of death. Despite its clinical relevance, there remains a pressing need to develop new approaches for controlling craving. Although olfactory cues (OCs) are especially well suited to reduce affectively charged cravings, there has been surprisingly little research on the topic.

Using Placebo Beverages in Group Alcohol Studies.

Background: Placebo beverage conditions remain a key element in the methodological toolkit for alcohol researchers interested in evaluating pharmacological and nonpharmacological factors influencing the effects of alcohol consumption. While interest in experimentally examining alcohol in social context is on the rise, there has been little research examining the effectiveness of placebo manipulations in group settings, when just 1 suspicious participant could potentially jeopardize the effect of the placebo on group members. Moreover, research has rarely considered the association between individual difference factors (e.

Addiction training and multiple treatments for all clinical psychologists: Reply to Freimuth (2018).

The authors agree with Freimuth (2018) that addiction training among clinical psychologists would be enhanced by offering addiction-related training to all clinical students, including those who do not aim to specialize in substance abuse. It is argued that Freimuth's points in fact support Dimoff, Sayette, and Norcross's (2017) recommendation that clinical programs bolster their addiction training but, contrary to Freimuth, in all evidence-based (abstinence and nonabstinence) treatments predicated on patient needs, not on practitioner preferences. (PsycINFO Database Record

A review of the effects of nicotine on social functioning.

Many smokers are aware that smoking is a dangerous health behavior and eventually try to quit smoking. Unfortunately, most quit attempts end in failure. Traditionally, the addictive nature of smoking has been attributed to the pharmacologic effects of nicotine.

The effects of alcohol on positive emotion during a comedy routine: A facial coding analysis.

There is considerable interest in understanding the emotional effects of alcohol. While a great deal of experimental research has focused on alcohol's ability to relieve negative emotions, there has been far less focus on the effects of alcohol on positive emotions. Further, the available research on positive emotion tends to test alcohol while participants are alone.

Perception of physical attractiveness when consuming and not consuming alcohol: a meta-analysis.

Background And Aims: Elucidating why people drink and why drinking can lead to negative psychosocial consequences remains a crucial task for alcohol researchers. Because drinking occurs typically in social settings, broader investigation of the associations between alcohol and social experience is needed to advance understanding of both the rewarding and hazardous effects of alcohol use. This review aimed to (a) estimate alcohol's relation to the perception of others' physical attractiveness and (b) suggest theoretical and methodological considerations that may advance the study of this topic.

Sayette Group Formation Task (GFT) Spontaneous Facial Expression Database.

Despite the important role that facial expressions play in interpersonal communication and our knowledge that interpersonal behavior is influenced by social context, no currently available facial expression database includes multiple interacting participants. The Sayette Group Formation Task (GFT) database addresses the need for well-annotated video of multiple participants during unscripted interactions. The database includes 172,800 video frames from 96 participants in 32 three-person groups.

Doctoral training in clinical psychology across 23 years: Continuity and change.

Objective: Doctoral training in clinical psychology has undergone substantial changes in recent decades, especially with the increasing heterogeneity of training models and graduate students. To document these changes, we analyzed program, student, and faculty characteristics of American Psychological Association (APA)-accredited clinical psychology programs over a 23-year span.

Method: We surveyed directors of clinical training about their doctoral programs every 2 years from 1991 to 2013, securing 90%-98% response rates.

Addiction training in clinical psychology: Are we keeping up with the rising epidemic?

Addiction has emerged as a serious public health crisis. Clinical psychology as a hub science has a long-standing interest in addiction and is particularly well suited to offer multifaceted treatment to those struggling with substance use disorders. To examine how well clinical psychology training is addressing this proliferation of addiction-related problems, we surveyed the directors of clinical training at all APA-accredited U.

The effects of alcohol on emotion in social drinkers.

Understanding why people drink alcohol and in some cases develop drinking problems has long puzzled researchers, clinicians, and patients alike. In the mid-1940s and early 1950s, experimental research began to systematically investigate alcohol's hedonic properties. Presumably, alcohol consumption would prove reinforcing as a consequence of its capacity either to relieve stress or to brighten positive emotional experiences.

The case for investigating social context in laboratory studies of smoking.

Background: With increasing frequency, addiction is conceived of as a brain disease, and such accounts seem especially pertinent with regard to the rapid delivery of nicotine to the brain via cigarette smoke. Moreover, drug administration trials (cigarette puffs) suggest that the behavior of smoking becomes automatized, with individuals developing prototypical approaches to smoking a cigarette. Compared with presumably more social activities, such as drinking alcohol, there may be little opportunity for social processes to influence smoking behavior.

Visceral States Call for Visceral Measures: Verbal Overshadowing of Hunger Ratings Across Assessment Modalities.

We introduce a nonverbal "visceral" measure of hunger (i.e., squeezing a handheld dynamometer) and provide the first evidence of verbal overshadowing effects in this visceral domain.